RECIPE: Extra-quick chicken piccata without a meat mallet

Chicken Piccata
(CHRIS HUNT FOR THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION)

Credit: CHRIS HUNT

Credit: CHRIS HUNT

Chicken Piccata (CHRIS HUNT FOR THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION)

As long as you’re not wanting to go wild with extra ingredients, chicken piccata is naturally friendly to a 5:30 Challenge makeover. You needn’t cut any of its core ingredients — chicken, flour, capers, butter and lemon — for a streamlined version of the dish. The main challenge is to cut down on prep time.

Piccata is typically made with thin, pounded chicken breast cutlets, which, while not hard to trim and flatten at home, can take some time. Instead, I like to use prepped chicken tenders. These are easy to find at the store, cook quickly and don’t require pulling out a meat mallet.

Instead of using wine in the sauce, I’ve used water and a generous amount of lemon juice to make up for the wine’s acidity. Flour left behind in the skillet from breading and browning the chicken will thicken up the lemony water into a luscious sauce in just a few minutes.

I like to serve the piccata straight from the skillet with plenty of rice on the side for drizzling with the sauce.

Sign up for the AJC Food and Dining Newsletter

Read more stories like this by liking Atlanta Restaurant Scene on Facebook, following @ATLDiningNews on Twitter and @ajcdining on Instagram.